Peter V’landys had long wanted to make Sydney racing the centre of Australia’s sporting universe and six years ago he asked for some advice as to how to go about it – money, and lots of it, was the reply.
“I was talking to someone, I trusted, and he said the only way to get the attention of newspaper editors and the media was money in Sydney,” V’landys said. “How much was the question, and he said ‘$10 million’. That’s a big number, and I had no idea where I would get the money to do that.”
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys created The Everest in a couple of months. Credit:Kate Geraghty
At the same time, the idea of the Pegasus World Cup was being promoted in the US, where a massive prize pool was being funded by selling slots to run in the race. The concept was new and daring and right up V’landys street.
“I had been thinking about this race for a couple of months and [former CEO of the Australian Jockey Club ] John Rouse sent me an email about the America slot race,” V’landys said. “I thought, ‘This is it’. That’s how I’ll get the $10 million.”
Within days, the Racing NSW board was briefed, but the idea had to be kept secret for the next two months and only a couple of people were asked to give a view.
V’landys wanted the race to be deliberately brash and to appeal to young people, so turned to the emerging next generation of the sport, Newgate Farm boss Henry Field.
“Peter rang me and I went in for a couple of meetings with him, which were like interrogations about American racing and how this slots race worked,” Field said. “You knew it was tight, and I didn’t talk to anyone about those meetings
“It was an extraordinary experience to watch how Peter’s mind works and I felt it was a great idea. I could feel it getting momentum. I look back now and wish I had the foresight to take a slot.”
Once V’landys had the idea and the concept, the final push to making an announcement took just 10 days.
“Once we decided we would go with the concept, it was rush to get it done,” V’landys said. “We didn’t want someone else to beat us to it. We ended up doing the announcement by teleconference because we wanted to just get it out there.”
Only a week before, Racing NSW chairman Russell Balding had sat at the table with V’landys and there wasn’t even a name for the race. They also had to work out how to future-proof the concept.
“We needed to find out what people were prepared to pay, but we needed them there with a commitment,” Balding said. “It was important to get them to sign for three years because we thought it will take a few years for everyone to embrace the race.”
Next, just 48 hours before the announcement, Laurie Macri, the ATC chairman at the time, was called in.
“Good ideas take five minutes to understand – this took five seconds, it was brilliant,” Macri said. “It moved very fast in the next couple of days, like the race.”
V’landys, in concert with the widening group, came up with the name, the distance and the price to make his $10 million vision work.
“We worked out that at $600,000 we could get have half a dozen slot holders prepared to come in and we backed ourselves to sell the rest,” V’landys said.
“We argued about what the trip should be, but I said we have the best sprinters in the world, so our richest race needs to reflect that and had to be at 1200m.
“Once we had that done, we had our pinnacle race. We need a name that was about the top of the world and that’s why we went with The Everest.”
